


Love Like Ours Won't Never Grow Old

by MissSunFlower94



Category: Strange Magic (2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1950s, Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, Alternate Universe - Tattoo Parlor, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-03
Updated: 2015-02-22
Packaged: 2018-03-10 07:33:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 21,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3282179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissSunFlower94/pseuds/MissSunFlower94
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Putting the 'jukebox' in Jukebox Musical.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my legacy.

Marianne Fairwood was aware that she could be intimidating, oftentimes when she did not want to be. However, this was playing to her favor when she tracked down the delivery boy for her family’s florist shop in search for her younger sister. She liked Sunny well enough, she really did. He was outgoing, charming and ernest. But he was also the impetuous Dawn Fairwood’s partner-in-crime.

And a terrible liar. 

"What makes you think she’s out somewhere she shouldn’t be?" He asked. He stood too straight - and even then he only came to her nose - and Marianne could tell he was wringing his hands behind his back.

"Because you’re not with her. You’re always with her - except for when you’re working or she’s in class. Or when you’re covering for her."

He blanched visibly, and she had to keep herself from smiling in triumph. It would ruin the effect. “She wouldn’t like it if I told you.”

"You’ll like it even less if you don’t." Sunny nodded, believing her. "Sunny-"

"Alright, alright! She’s at some tattoo parlor on north side."

"She’s where?" She exploded. 

"I’m supposed to pick her up in an hour," he added, sheepishly.

"You let her-! You  _took her_ -!”

He waved his hands frantically. “She’s not gettin’ inked or nothing! She said she was eyeballing it. She was still deciding anyway…” he trailed off.

"Deciding what?" Marianne asked icily.

"Whose name to get," he said, deflating a little.

She had expected as much. Groaning, she almost went to run her fingers through her hair before remembering she was wearing the hair scarf her father insisted she wear on the days she worked the counter. “Little monster is going to be the death of me,” she said to herself. “Well, come on.”

"Come on, where?"

"You’re taking me to get her. Right now," she said. 

"But- the shop-" he fluttered.

"Shop can wait. If dad finds out she set foot that end of town he’ll kill her. Then me. Then the both of us again! And what were  _you_  thinking?” she added. “What do you think would happen if dad found out you took her there?”

Sunny went still and Marianne sighed. She didn’t like pulling that card on him but it was lucky that their father even employed someone of his background and that didn’t mean he was safe. She smiled at him. 

"Thankfully, he’s not going to know, because we’re getting her. Now."

The trip was short, and tense. Marianne had only been to the north end of town once, and she didn’t like to think much of that day. Besides, she knew the stories of gang fights and greasers and girls getting pregnant at Dawn’s age.   
Of course, she’d stopped playing the prim good girl she had tried so hard to be around the same time she’d last paid that part of town a visit, but she still knew where lines were drawn. 

The shop itself was only advertised by a small sign etched into a dark window, chipped in places. Dark Forest Tattoo.

"Charming," Marianne muttered. " _This_  was her first choice? Sunny, keep it running - we’re tuning out as soon as I get back.”  She didn’t want to go in there alone but much as she loved Sunny, he was not a good choice of companion. Leaving him waiting for when they needed to leave was the best possible option. 

"Yes ma’am, miss Marianne," he piped, nervous but obedient. She smiled in spite of herself at the address, then steeled her expression, squared her shoulders, and marched in.

Two men were bickering quietly amongst themselves when she entered - well, Marianne assumed they were men; the badly fitted jean jackets and stained shirts, unevenly chopped hair greased back off their foreheads didn’t lend themselves to any gender. A handful of chairs sat empty, and a dark curtain separated the back of the building from her view. No sign of Dawn.

Both went silent at her entrance and she got the distinct impression the place didn’t get much traffic.

"Can we help you, missy?" Asked the slighter off the two. 

"Do you have an appointment?" Added the other.

"Yes and no," she said flatly, not in any mood to be well-mannered. "My sister is here. Where is she?"

They whispered for a moment. “She’s in back talkin’ with the boss.”

"Well then get her for me."

Another whispered conference, this one more frantic. “Can’t do that - boss doesn’t take kindly to interruptions.”

"I don’t care!" She snapped, fighting the urge to grab one of them by the collar. "I’m taking my sister home with me and if you don’t get her for me I’ll grab her mys-!"

"What’s going on out here?" A sharp voice interrupted her. The curtain shifted and a man walked out. Tall, at least a head taller than her, and razor thin. In fact, everything about him made her think of razors; sharp - from the crisp lines of his leather jacket to the angle of his cheekbones -  and dangerous. He glared at his two cronies first before he looked at her. She stood unflinching.

"I’m here to pick up my sister," she said, cold.

The impatient anger seemed to leave him, turning into a condescending exasperation that she liked no better. “Oh, not  _another_  princess,” he said under his breath.

Unable to help herself, Marianne shifted uncomfortably. She was dressed in her florist clothes; a white tee tucked into a purple floral printed skirt, made to help the place look inviting. She looked like Dawn - no, she looked like she was dressing up like Dawn. She clenched her fists to keep from touching the clothes self-consciously. 

"Look, just give me my sister and we’ll both get out of that grease-ball you call hair."

One of his minions snorted, and the man’s eye flicked to them both before looking at her again. He stepped closer to her, then raised an eyebrow when she made no move to step back - clearly he was as used to being intimidating as she was. “Your sister is a paying customer.”

"Oh, and you’re so desperate for money you just can’t turn her away?" She taunted. "Go waste your time on someone else."

He twitched, twisting his neck so that it cracked. Before he could say anything however, he was interrupted.

"Marianne!?" Dawn squeaked. The blonde came running out a moment later. "How did you know- I mean, why are you-?"

Relief filled her to just have Dawn in her sights again. “Never mind that, we’re leaving. Sunny’s got the ride out front.”

"Aw, he rapped on me, really?" She groaned. "I should have guessed."

"Never mind that," she repeated. "We’re leaving."

"No! Wait! I-" She went quiet.

"You what?"

"I’ve already paid."

"You  _what_?” Marianne snapped. “Sunny said you were just eyeballing it!”

"He wouldn’t agree to take me unless I said that!" 

But Marianne was looking past her to the tall man, his arms crossed, looking both annoyed and dismissive of their argument. Stalking back up to him she growled. “Her money.”

"What about it,  _princess_?”

She put her hand out. “Lay it on.” 

"You in charge of what she does?" He asked, looking between them with a hint of a smirk. 

"That’s none of yours," she shot back. "Money. Now, you leather-encrusted _pinecone.”_

"Marianne-" Dawn began. Marianne glared at her sister, her best ‘ _we’re having a_ talk _later, missy_ ' look. Dawn subsided.

Thoroughly fed up, she turned the glare back at him, actually causing him to lean back, startled. Pleased with getting a reaction other than smug or annoyed out of him, she smirked. “Money?” She said again.

Shaking his head, he made no move to argue. The cash landed in her hand. “Happy?”

She nodded, satisfied. “Very,” she said in mock sweet tones. Grabbing her sister by the wrist she pulled her out of the dimly lit building. “Go, get in now.” She said, shooing her out the door.

"Pleasure doing business with ye," she heard him say sarcastically. 

She waved her hand idly, “Likewise,” she said, letting the door slam behind her.


	2. Chapter 2

It was not so much that he kept thinking about her, per say, in the week that followed the two sisters’ rather impressive visit. It was more that she… refused to stay outof his head.

Bog didn’t know why she, with her sardonic comments and cold glare, wouldn’t leave him. They hadn’t exactly had a screen-worthy first impression of each other. They’d argued, briefly, she’d grabbed the younger blonde – and her money – and stormed out. Nothing more.

Perhaps it was  _because_  she’d argued with him; he was used to effectively frightening off anyone who had entertained the idea of doing such. His people knew better than to get on his bad side, her people took only one look at him to know as much. If they were smart. But she hadn’t been foolish either.

She wasn’t even particularly attractive, to him at least. Objectively, he knew both she and her fairer sister were the ideal for their part of town. But she –  _they_ – were as little his type as he was theirs.

Which is why the flowers confused him.

They just kept showing up – conveniently never delivered when he was actually at the shop, when he could have turned them away or throughly scared the delivery boy from coming back with more – sent, he presumed, by the younger sister. They were all pastels, all expertly placed into quaint designs, all so…  _fragrant_. Hideous, all of it, but Bog couldn’t quite bring himself to throw them out. No one dared comment on it.

Well, no one but his mother, who was, of course, delighted.

Three days of flowers littered the Dark Forest when Griselda King came in in a glow, just as the shop was closing. Stuff and Thang were packing up; he could hear them muttering about the flowers and their stench and was already in a foul mood.

“Well?” She asked, grinning up at him. As always, she was dressed in an ill-fitting dress that had probably been  _some_  color once in it’s miserable life. Bog couldn’t know for sure if she simply always wore it or if she had several identical numbers. It was grotesque, but she simply wouldn’t have been his mother in anything else.

“Well, what?” He said, all too aware of where the conversation was heading and choosing not to humor her.

“Remember how you were going to talk to that lovely girl sending you all these lovely gifts-“

“No, I wasn’t.”

“But had that small, tiny problem of not knowing her name or where she lived?” It had been the excuse he’d given, tiredly, the day before, falling back on something that might finally dissuade her from her matchmaking. He should have known better, really.

When he said nothing to that, already walking away from her in search of his jacket, she added. “Aren’t you going to ask what I did about it?”

“Not interested,” he called back.

She continued anyways. “I talked to Plum-“

That got his attention, the name he hadn’t heard in well over a year. “You what?” He said, turning. His two employees had gone quiet, equally shocked by this.

“It’s a momentary truce, you know, temporary – common cause and everything,” she explained blithely.

“Ah, yes the common cause of tryin’ to get me shackled to every woman who walks past.” He growled.

“Married,” she corrected him, reaching as though to take his hand before he stepped back, crossing his arms stubbornly. “Married and in love, and happy, son.” He snorted, and she gave him her best motherly glare that somehow managed to work even when she was over a foot and a half shorter than him. “And you are entirely missing the point – I spoke with Plum about it, she’s moved back to that part of town after all. Turns out she knew exactly who she is, her and her sister. The Fairwood girls, and their family owns the florist shop just two doors down from hers. Dawn’s the young one, a real heartbreaker, her older sister is Mary- no, Marianne. She figures Dawn’s the one sending you all these tokens – the older girl’s not the romantic type. Isn’t that the most darling?”

“No,” Stuff muttered, having returned to picking up some of the empty florist boxes from the corners of the shop. Both Bog and Griselda glared at them.

“Not interested,” Bog repeated, while part of him repeated the name Marianne to itself, twitching at the memory of her face of that being what her younger sister had called her, in shocked tones when she had snapped at him without any trace of cowardice.  _Marianne_. “Not interested in uptown princesses so you can tell Plum-“

“Hey, boss, there’s another one in here,” Thang called, having been inspecting the day’s earlier delivery.

Thrown off from what he was going to say, he looked over. “What.”

Stuff was looking over at the box, too. “That’s not a bouquet – I don’t think those are even flowers.”

“They are too flowers, look it’s got petals and everythin’”

“But it’s all brown-“

“JUST hand it over,” Bog snapped. They silenced and obeyed.

They were, oddly enough, both right. It was, or at least had been at some point, a flower bouquet similar to those that Dawn Fairwood had sent. However, this one had long since outlived any life or color, having withered and rotted and shrunken down. The ragged remains of a ribbon kept the stems together and tied to that was a small folded paper. A note.

## Found this in the trash. Thought of you. – M

 _M_. Marianne Fairwood. The elder sister. He could hear her mocking voice, see her lips curved into the smallest smirk, her eyes sparkling with challenge, as surely as if she stood in front of him.

"Boss?" One of his two employees asked, somewhat tentatively. 

He looked up from the note sharply. “What?”

"Are you alright, sir?"

"What?" He asked again. "No- ah, yes.  _Yes._  I’m fine.” His eyes drifted back to the rotted thing.

Maybe he’d pay the Fairwood Florists a visit after all.  


	3. Chapter 3

“Dawn, let me clue you in on something; ‘ _he’ll make dad flip_ ’ is not a good basis for a relationship.”

Marianne’s sister was putting together another stupid bouquet or corsage or whatever it was this time, humming something boppy under her breath. She cut the song off and turned to glare at her. “That is not why I like him.”

“You just said so!” Marianne said.

“Nooo,” Dawn countered. “I said it was  _one_  reason – not the only one!”

Marianne lounged back against the cutting counter – both sisters were in the back room, with business fairly slow. The Valentine’s Day rush wouldn’t begin for another week or so, but they’d spent the morning decorating the window displays and preparing all the same. “Alright then, why else do you like him?”

She faltered, picking at a few white roses that lay cut on the table. “He’s – well I mean he’s so- he’s very-“

Marianne nodded her head seriously. “Ah.”

“You hush!” Dawn snapped. “He had amazing eyes.”

She blinked, a little taken aback. She hadn’t noticed that, but then, she hadn’t really cared to look too closely at him. She had just wanted to grab Dawn and get out. She tried to call his eyes to mind but only remembered them being in shadow. The whole shop had been in shadow it had felt like. “Eyes are not a good basis for a relationship either,” she finally retorted.

Dawn groaned. “Oh, Marianne, you are the least romantic person I’ve ever known. Is this because of the Roland thing?”

“Please don’t call it ‘the Roland thing,’” Marianne said, echoing her sister’s groan. “You sound like dad.”

Dawn cringed, an appropriate response to that comment; the girls both loved their father, but he was not particularly knowledgeable when it came to understanding his daughters – or females in general. She shrugged it off after a moment. “It doesn’t matter, anyways. I’ll think of other things I like when I see him again.”

Marianne went still. “When you see- when you see him again?” Dawn nodded, cheerfully and she shook her head. “Nuh-uh. No way. No, you are not seeing him again, Dawn.”

Her sister’s petulant scowl returned. “Now  _you_  sound like dad.”

“I do not!”

“You do so!”

“I’m just looking out for you-!” she protested.

“Ah, see! That’s exactly what dad would say.”

“It is not!”

“It is so!” Dawn cried, but she was laughing now. They both were. When the laughter faded Dawn added, “Marianne?”

“Yeah?”

She was looking again at the flowers she had been piecing together. “Am I still grounded for- you know…”

Marianne eyed her warily. “…Yes.”

“ _How_  grounded?” She asked.

“Why do you want to know?” She asked, already having the answer in mind.

Dawn was studiously not looking at her. “Well, there’s a hop tonight and I-“

She raked her fingers through her hair with a growl of frustration. “You drive me CRAZY, you know that?”

“Would it make you feel better if I took Sunny with me?”

“No,” she said shortly. “Besides, Dawn, you need to get your head out of the clouds and look at what’s going on around you – Sunny will do anything for you, but when you do something really silly someday who do you think is going to get punished for it?”

Dawn sobered instantly at the idea of anything happening to her best friend. Marianne sighed, feeling a twinge of guilt for sounding so harsh just then. “Look, go to your hop if you want. I know you love dancing.”

She brightened instantly. “Really? Oh, Marianne you’re tops, you really are!” She hugged her so tight Marianne squeaked. She held back another sigh. Dawn would not be so pleased to know that her older sister had more than half a mind of following her to this party. Who knew? Maybe it would be uneventful, maybe Dawn would fall for some golden jock and the tattoo parlor would finally be put behind them. She could hope at least.

Dawn flitted about, going to put a record on while she finished her newest gift. Marianne rubbed one temple as she worked out how her plans for the evening would go. Sunny would have to tell her where the party was, of course, and she’d have to wait at least half of an hour before following.

She woke out of these thoughts when the bell at the front door gave its tiny ring. Dawn started as well, but Marianne waved her off. “I’ll handle it – you just keep making your… is that a  _boutonniere_?” Her sister nodded gleefully, and she sighed. “Right. I’ll be back in a bit.”

“Try not to scare anyone off this time!”

“I make no promises!” She called back, rounding a corner and pushing open the door to the shop floor.

Standing at the very edge of the shop, tall and dark and wholly out of place, was the greaser from the tattoo parlor.

Marianne stared at him, aware she was openly gaping in horror. Her mind spun through several thoughts in the space of a few seconds.

First, that Dawn certainly had  _not_  remembered him clearly because this was not some silver screen worthy James Dean bad boy as she had been rhapsodizing near constantly. He was sharp angles and an expression like a thundercloud at all times. He was too far away for her to see his eyes clearly but she couldn’t imagine them making _that_ look any more appealing.

Second, why on earth was he there? Two options were presented before her; that he hadn’t taken kindly to her impulsive present of a rotting bouquet, or, worse, that Dawn’s gifts had by some magic won him over. Dawn having a short-lived crush on a greaser was frustrating, but manageable. Him returning the feelings was out of the question.

Third, Dawn could NOT know he was there.

“What are you doing here?” She hissed at last.

Whatever her expressions had been doing during her thoughts, it did nothing to discourage him. “You show all your customers this courtesy?” He asked.

She ground her teeth, remembering Dawn’s words about scaring people away and wished in vain for the ability in that moment. “Customer?” She said. “Well, aren’t you lighting up the tilt sign.”

He raised his eyebrows, raising his hands in an ironic surrender. “Got no reason to lie, princess.” She growled, before she could stop herself, at his form of address. “Last I knew, florists are where you go when you want flowers.”

She said nothing, crossing her arms before her, the best ferocious scowl on her face. She caught a flicker of a smirk, as if her stubborn unwillingness to surrender somehow pleased him. It was her luck; the one person she wanted to scare away found her entertaining.

Finally she glanced around and added, “How’d you find this place, then?”

“You writin’ a book?” When she only held his gaze levelly he added, somewhat exasperated. “My aunt owns the perfume shop on this stretch.”

Marianne blinked. She knew the place perfectly, everyone knew the place. The Primrose Perfume Emporium was something of an oddity that no one quite knew what to do with. The shop’s owner, a woman known exclusively as Plum, was an oddity herself. No one knew her age or anything about her family and she changed her appearance more often than anyone considered natural or healthy. She found she wasn’t surprised at the relation.

“You still haven’t answered why you want them.”

“You still haven’t asked.”

“I did, too!” She snapped. “When you came in!”

“Lovely greeting, that was,” he said. She noticed he had an accent, just on certain words. It interested her. She didn’t like being _interested._  She didn’t like that he was still there – Dawn would come out any minute and the sight of him would rekindle all her romantic daydreams.

Thankfully her prayers were answered, though not the way she expected. The door slammed open again, nearly smacking him in the back of the head – he had not once stepped away from the door during their conversation. He turned, “What?” He snapped, his voice suddenly several shades harsher.

It was one of the two… employees, she had seen the week before. The shorter one, wringing their hands. “Should we be… going, now, boss?”

“ _What?_ ” He asked again.

The voice dropped to a whisper, “Well, you said to come and say so if you were in here longer than-“

“I know what I said, now get out!”

“Yes, King, sir.” The greaser said, quickly ducking his head out as quickly as he’d come.

He looked back at Marianne who, in spite of herself, could feel a smirk of her own on her face.  _So that’s how it was_. She’d continuously been more than he was expecting – no need to stop now.

“’ _King_ ’?” She asked, casually gazing at her fingernails. “Very humble.”

He cleared his throat. “It is my last name.”

“Ah,” she said. He shifted again. He was uncomfortable now; it delighted her. As did the realization of how to get rid of him. “Well, if you’re going to be going…” She smirked, fishing around under her desk. She had found the rotted remains of a failed boutonniere the day before and had planed to hide it in Dawn’s wrapping as she had before – but she was flexible.

Coming from around the counter she walked confidently up to him, pleased by the way he stiffened, an expression of discomfiture and interest on his face as she stepped nearly toe-to-toe with him. His eyes – blue, Marianne noticed, a clear, nearly impossible shade of blue – widened a little. She took the disgusting thing and with sure movements pinned it to the lapel of his leather jacket.

“There. Suits you,” she said, smiling mockingly into his face. “You got what you came for – now get out.”

His crony seemed to have heard because the door opened again and now two pairs of hands dragged the man out. The door gave a satisfying bang as it closed, the bell ringing for a few extra seconds. Marianne stared at it for a moment, not really seeing it as the somewhat surreal quality of their second conversation – second argument – really sunk in. She had no idea what to make of him – she still didn’t really know why he had even come.

“Mari?” Dawn poked her head out after… well, she wasn’t sure how much time had passed. “Who was it?”

Marianne turned to her sister. “I- uh- ahh-“ she waved a hand vaguely, not sure what to say, what not to say, what had just happened.

Dawn looked at her for a long moment. Then shrugged. “Weelll, okay! I’m going to go get ready for the hop, okay?” With that she disappeared again.

Marianne groaned, rubbing her head again.

It was going to be a long night.


	4. Chapter 4

It was, as it turned out, a very, very long night.

Marianne’s mood was already sour with the knowledge that she would have to follow her sister and keep an eye on her again, further soured by seeing and talking to her… well, he wasn’t _her_  anything.

And to top it off, Dawn had lied about where she was going. A fact Marianne all but shook out of Sunny shortly after her sister left the shop (“Didn’t say anythin’ about a hop, Miss Marianne, not to me. Something about some bar north-” he had cut himself off but she’d gotten what she needed all the same).

Of course, Marianne thought repeatedly to herself taking the whole bus journey to the side of town she’d hoped she’d never have to see again – at night no less. Of course Dawn would go back, jump at any chance to see her newest true love. She wondered if she knew for certain that he’d be there or if she was just stalking every seedy public place in search. She didn’t know which idea concerned her more.

She could hear the music from about a block away, loud angry sounding stuff that was more noise than tune. The bar itself looked more like a shack, being held up by the sheer amount of occupants in it. It was so far from Dawn’s kind of party that, if her mood had been better, Marianne would have laughed aloud.

As it were, she simply ground her teeth further. Marianne had never been to a proper bar – even some of the nicer ones on the south side – and she remembered how she used to beg Roland to take her to one at least once and his condescending remarks about how it wasn’t the place for a classy girl like her. He’d sounded like her father with his  _what would people think_ s and  _you’re too good for that kind of place_ s. Well, she wasn’t feeling like being good that night.

The inside was even more of a mess than the outside, on top of which smelt utterly vial. It was packed, so much so that she barely was able to make it in, and impossibly loud. The music came from a band on a stage only slightly better lit on the far end of the long room, the noise muffled by the voices of all the people around her. She stood on her toes, peering around the dark space in hopes of spotting a blonde head in the crowd. With no luck she began to shove her away further in the room, wondering if she screamed loud enough if her sister would come.

Then she caught the singer’s accent.

It was harder to hear in song than in speech, and it was also impossible to pick out any words he was actually singing over the noise of the bar, the feedback of the music and the scratchy quality of the speakers. But it was there, somewhere in the treatment of his vowels, something she had caught onto earlier that day. Marianne froze, and turned slowly toward the stage. “You  _can’t_ be serious,” she said, aloud though inaudible by anyone near her.

Unfortunately, she had been right. There on that tiny rickety poorly lit stage, he stood singing. She’d hoped so much that she’d never see this man again and she had now seen him twice in the space of a single day. For a moment, she lost her focus on Dawn, as she watched him – aware that he looked… comfortable, where he was. The most comfortable she’d seen him. Like this was his place, and these were his people and Marianne felt absurdly like she was intruding.

And then, he saw her. She didn’t know how he could pick out anyone in the given light and mass of faces but she could feel it, his eyes settle on her. Ever casual, he slid one hand down the lapel of his jacket and Marianne realized he was still wearing her wilted boutonniere she’d given him and felt her face heat up. Her earlier ire returned and she lifted her chin and met his gaze levelly. He  _smiled_ , the bastard, more audible in his voice than visible from the distance between them. She tried to glare but felt her lips twitch.

Still looking at her, he jerked his head a little to the left – a small cue. Following it, Marianne glanced in that direction to find her sister, at long last. Dawn was talking with several of the bar’s patrons, several of whom were female as far as she could tell. Marianne couldn’t hear whatever it was her sister was saying but apparently it was hilarious to the obviously drunk gathering around her. Dawn, herself, didn’t have a drink and looked a little lost, but was, as always, basking in the attention she was given. Marianne exhaled, feeling like a weight had lifted off of her. She needed to do was get over there and drag her sister home, again, but at least there had been no crisis.

“Marianne?”

She froze, her stomach dropping into her shoes.  _Oh no. Oh no no no no no._  Turning very slowly, Marianne faced the man she hadn’t seen in over two months and had intended to never see again.

Roland was as handsome as he ever was, his hair an almost luminescent gold even in the dingy light, his face it’s usual chiseled perfection, his green letterman’s jacket in pristine condition. He was smiling at her in a way that made her want to knock his lights out. She could already feel her fists clenching.

When she said nothing, he continued, all smooth charm and practiced words. “What on earth are you doin’ on this part of town, darlin’?”

She hated that drawl. She hated his patronizing pet names. She couldn’t comprehend what she had possibly ever seen in him. “Don’t worry about me,” she said, coldly. “I’m leaving now.”

He winced. “Ooh, that’s quite the face. Don’t tell me you’re still steamed about that little misunderstanding we had?”

“Misunderstanding?” She hissed. “ _Little_  misunderstanding?” She placed both her hands on his chest and shoved as hard as she could. Roland looked satisfyingly startled as he bumped into a few people behind him.

“Large misunderstanding, if you’d like,” he said. “C’mon Marianne, I told you it was nothing serious. Nothing worth breakin’ things off for – a week before the wedding, too-“

“Yes! You cheated on me a week before our wedding, Roland!” She shouted, shoving him again, too shocked and too angry to care that they were in public having a conversation she hadn’t shared with anyone. If she were paying more attention she’d have seen that people were beginning to turn towards the sight of her, as small and delicate as her sister, doing her best to knock a pretty boy jock to the floor, and largely succeeding. “So don’t come trying” shove “to talk me into pitying you” shove “you self-centered, egotistical, social-climbing-“

He caught her wrists suddenly. “Now darlin’ you’re being awfully dramatic about this, don’t you think.”

“Let  _go_  of me, Roland!”

“If you’d just let me explain things, I’m sure you can understand-“

“Roland!” She kicked at his legs, furiously. “Let me go!”

“If I were you, I’d do as she says,” a familiar voice growled from behind her. She’d been so wrapped up in getting to Dawn and arguing with Roland that she hadn’t even noticed that the music had stopped. She turned to find him there. Sometime after she’d stopped paying attention he’d lost his jacket – tattoos of patterned plants and vines traveled up both arms. With his glare was every bit of fierce as her own, and his lips curled back in a snarl he looked like something feral, something you didn’t mess with. “Don’t think you wanna see what I’ll do if you don’t.”

* * *

The man – Roland, she had called him, probably completely unaware how cutting her voice was through even this rowdy of a group – looked between him and Marianne, brief surprise and panic quickly being overtaken by a particularly slimy smile that he was used to from people on that end of town.

“Well now, Marianne,” he drawled, dropping her wrists at last. “You didn’t tell me you had a… “ He trailed off, making a vague hand gesture toward him. “What  _is_  he, exactly? Guard dog?”

Bog bit back a growl and Marianne bristled. “He’s not my anything!” She turned to him sharply, her glare so savage he was surprised it hadn’t stopped Roland’s heart yet by its intensity alone. “You’re not my anything – I can take care of myself!”

He raised his hands, an ironic show of surrender.

Seemingly satisfied by it she nodded curtly and returned her attention to the blond. “For the last time, Roland – I’m leaving, so  _back_  off.”

“Aw, don’t be like that, buttercup.” Bog winced.  _Buttercup_?  _Really_? Even princess was a better handle than that. “Haven’t I apologized enough? You’re not gonna make a poor guy beg, are you?”

“You never apologized and you can beg all you like,” she snapped. “It’s your own fault this happened. Now, leave me alone.”

“C’mon doll-“ He reached to take her hand or her arm and she stepped back quickly, colliding with Bog. She looked back at him, startled and irate, as if she had thought he had evaporated when she had told him she could take care of herself and wasn’t pleased to find that he hadn’t.

After a moment the scowl softened a fraction. “Did you see where my sister went?” She said.

He wasn’t surprised she was asking, but was a little startled that she asked him – and a question, not a demand. The tallest person in the room, of course it made sense. “I don’t think she moved,” he said, turning to be sure. Yes, there was the young girl, all pastel and prettified, gaping at her elder sister in scandalized awe. He bit his lip to keep from laughing. Marianne obviously loved her sister very much, but they could not have been more different people.

She had followed his gaze. “Good,” she said making to brush past him to collect her. Before she could, Roland grabbed for her wrist again this time succeeding in grasping it.

Bog tensed, but before he could do anything he felt Marianne beside him go ridged. And then, in one fluid motion she turned, swinging her fist and the blond was on the floor before Bog could register that she had just decked him in the jaw with all the strength she had. If anyone had been in entourage with the boy, they chose not to claim him as he lay only partially conscious on the bar floor.

The room had gone quiet, save an appreciative round of applause from a few random people, but Marianne didn’t seem to have noticed any of it. She waved her hand, wincing slightly and looking around her absently. Her fury had faded and if anything she looked pleased with herself. Bog stared at her, at a complete loss for words. She sensed his gaze and looked up at him, and she smiled. It was a bitter kind of smile, but her eyes were alight as if punching someone had been all she had needed to have a good time. “Told you I didn’t need you,” she said.

“I… believe you.” He managed, somewhat breathless.

She nodded then leaned around him to shout, “Dawn! We’re leaving NOW!”

He heard Dawn’s groan from behind him but didn’t bother to look away. She looked back at him, “King, was it?”

“Bog,” he corrected, aware that he had known her name much longer than she had known his.

She raised her eyebrows but didn’t comment. “Well,  _Bog_ , it’s been… an adventure, but I’m gonna split.”

She gave him a ironic salute. A few seconds later Dawn stood beside her elder sister and Marianne quickly took her arm with a glare that was far more affectionate than the kind she had given Roland. “Come on,” she said, and turned to go. The bars patrons let her pass, parting for her like a sea. Like she was a force of nature. And she was.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shorter. but important.

If Bog had thought Marianne Fairwood had consumed his thoughts before it was _nothing_ compared to how it was after the… incident at the bar.

He had expected to see her, the moment Dawn Fairwood had entered. Still, seeing her, seeing her see him… the expression on her face when she’d seen him had been enough before watching her punch a man into unconsciousness, collecting her sister – again – and the way her whole face had lit up afterward. He could not get her face out of his mind and he wasn’t putting much effort into trying.

God, if his mother knew the mess his thoughts were in she would be overjoyed. She’d probably start planning a wedding immediately.

He spent the entire next day glancing at the door, half expecting her sister to come bouncing through – with her following hot on her heels as always. He spent the entire day expecting a delivery of bubblegum colored flowers – her own rotting token sitting amongst them. He spent the entire day thinking about going back to that flower shop – trying to formulate some sort of excuse.

So he did the smart thing; absolutely nothing.

Which, of course, meant that she’d show up in his life again.

After the shop closed for the day (with no flowers, no Dawn, and no Marianne) Bog had gone as far to drive to the south of town, passed her little flower shop with half a mind of going in, passed it _twice_ before calling himself a hundred different words for idiot and chosen to go home.

His mother had been the one to tell him to pick up dinner if he went out and while it wasn’t his first choice he found himself at a small drive in diner somewhere between where Marianne’s uptown ended and his end of town began. Feeling vaguely uneasy, he shrugged off his jacket and ordered, hoping to get out of there fast. It might have been on the border, but he still felt distinctly out of place and unwelcome.

And _that_ was when he saw Marianne Fairwood, sitting at one of the outdoor tables – alone, by all appearances – and waiting for food of her own. She was facing him but hadn’t noticed he was there, much to his relief and disappointment. She was dressed different than he’d usually seen her in, although he couldn’t remember what she’d worn in the bar – he hadn’t been paying attention. She wasn’t in skirts for once – instead a loose purple top tucked into blue jeans rolled up to her mid calf – and looked infinitely more comfortable that way.  She had rollers strapped to her shoes, a scarf similar to her shirt tied her hair back, and she was drumming her fingers on table impatiently, clearly not liking being there anymore than he did. He felt himself smile.

He watched her for several minutes, waiting – hoping – for her to sense his eyes on her, just imaging how she might react. No such luck, as her own order arrived. A small paper sack in hand she stood and began to walk – roll, as it were, towards him. No, not towards him; she still hadn’t noticed him leaning against his bike staring at her, quite unable to stop. There she was, an answer to his day of… not pining, _certainly_ not pining, but something, some restless desire to see her again.

She passed him, completely oblivious, and Bog couldn’t help himself.

“Well, _look at you_ ,” he called.

Marianne froze – a feat on her skates – and turned very, very slowly. He gave a snort of laughter at her expression. It was everything he had hoped; completely appalled at first but slowly melting into the sarcastic smile he was so used to from her. Shaking her head, she came closer.

“You know, I’m going to start thinking you’re stalking me.”

He laughed again. “You know, I was here first – same goes for the most of our interactions.” She held his gaze, levelly. He raised his hands, “Honest, tough girl, I didn’t know you’d be here.”

She looked at him for a moment longer then shrugged. “I believe you.” Her eyes traveled to his bike, and he wondered if he was imagining the interest. Before he could comment on that, though, her attention had shifted and it took Bog a moment before he realized she was looking at his tattoos and tried to stop from shifting under her gaze. He was used to them being stared at but this was different. He cleared his throat and she came back to attention, looking as uncomfortable as he felt.

“Sorry,” she said. “I was just- they look sort of like…”

“Bog plants,” he supplied. “They are.”

“So, which came first – the name or the tattoos?”

“The name, actually,” he answered promptly. She raised her eyebrows, a common reaction. “My aunt, Plum, gave me the handle. I used to skip classes to go out to the backwoods and draw.”

“Draw?” She asked. Now, he raised one eyebrow at her. She caught on a few seconds later, wincing. “Right, tattoo artist. I didn’t think to connect-“

“Most people don’t,” he said. “Plum would cover for me most days. Got to asking me ‘you goin’ down to the bog, boy?’ whenever she saw me. Became ‘bog-boy’ which became-“

“Bog,” she finished, and she was smiling.

He stretched, folding his hands behind his head. “Just so.”

Someone gave a piercing wolf-whistle, and both of them started, uncomfortable once again. Until that moment, Bog hadn’t even realized how relaxed Marianne had been and wished he had so he could remember it.

After a moment Marianne shook herself, and sighed. “Valentine’s day,” she said, to herself.

“I _hate_ this time of year,” he said, to himself.

They both looked at each other. They laughed.

“It’s so cliché,” she said through laughter. “So… so fake.”

“So desperate,” he added.

“Exactly! Oh, and you should see the shop. It’s a zoo! All these folks pouring in with stories about their perfect, best girl that they’re jacketed with this year and they’re the same who had a different girl the year before! It’s nothing but-“

“Lies!”

“ _Yes_!” She was grinning a wide savage grin, waving her hands expressively. “And _Dawn_! Dawn just eats it up – it drives me insane!”

He nodded. “I can imagine that. Should I be expecting more flowers than normal that day? Or should we be looking for an antidote?” He asked, dryly.

She snorted. “Don’t flatter yourself. Dawn falls in love with someone knew every few weeks – I mean, you’re a bit of a stretch, even for her, but you’re not going to last to Valentine’s.”

He rolled his eyes. “A simple _no_ would have done, tough girl.”

She eyed him. “That’s the second time you’ve called me that - am I Tough Girl now? No more Princess?” She was teasing but he could hear a little bit of pride in her voice and grinned.

“Well when you’ve seen a princess sock her prince charming in the jaw you get to thinking she needs a new nickname.”

She snorted. “Right, Roland. My Prince Charming.”

“He’s got the locks for it,” he twirled the air as if it were a strand of the golden boy’s hair – rewarded when Marianne laughed outright.

After a moment she sobered. “You know, I used to think that, not very long ago. I was engaged to him, actually.”

He snorted, trying to imagine that union. “You were goin’ get circled to that?”

Marianne groaned, “I know. It was mostly that my father is close to his family, and thought it was a good match – I wasn’t complaining though. Roland – he’s what every girl dreams of marrying.”

“… _Ah_.”

“Well it’s what I thought, then,” she informed him. “And I figured, I must have been on the hook for him, you know. Crazy in love. And then, a week before the wedding day I caught him- I saw him-“ She didn’t finish the thought, and didn’t need to. “He didn’t love me, I don’t think he ever had. I called off the engagement and that’s been it.” She shook herself.

“He seems to object to that,” he said.

“Yes, well, now I’m a challenge,” she said, dryly. “It doesn’t matter anyway – I’ve realized I would have hated being with him. Even when we were going together I knew he’d never want me if I was- if I was really-“

“You.” Bog finished. She looked at him a little startled, and nodded. “But you’re-“ He trailed off as he looked at her, at a loss for a word to describe this girl who had refused to be anything he had expected. “Different.” He ended, lamely.

Marianne gave a laugh that was more of a sigh. “I’ve been told.”

“That’s what I like!” He added, much too quickly – and much too loudly. He bristled, quickly looking away. “I mean- that is I… you know.”

He couldn’t look at her but even from the corner of his eye he saw her smiling again and was aware that this was the happiest he had ever seen her. That he had ever made her.

A few seconds they stood like that, embarrassed but delighted. Finally Marianne cleared her throat. “Well, I’m going to go – it’s getting dark.”

“I can give you a ride,” he said quickly.

She stared, eyes wide. “On that?”

He grinned, pleased by her reaction. “You ever been on one before?”

“Are you kidding?”

“Well…?” He drew the word out, as a proposal. The offer had been made impulsively, too late to take back. And he wasn’t sure he would have if he could.

He waited, patiently, as she obviously thought it over. She smiled at him, shaking her head. “How about… another time.”

Bog stared at her, swallowing hard at the implications of that simple phrase. Another time meant seeing him another time, meant she wanted to see him again, _planned_ to see him again. He nodded weakly. “Another time will do.”


	6. Chapter 6

Marianne was in a surprisingly good mood, completely, blissfully, _unusually_ happy. She wasn’t exactly sure what to do with it.

She did know its cause, though – however confusing that was.

It was amazing, unbelievable, almost bordering on _miraculous_ how much one conversation had affected her feelings towards a man she’d known hardly over a week. She could count their interactions on one hand and still have a finger or two left over. Bog was – well, to quote him, he was _different_ than anything or anyone she had ever known. On a surface level that made sense, where he came from was practically a different universe than hers, He was supposed to be something strange and foreign to her.

And yet, Marianne had never met anyone who she felt so completely _got her_. One conversation and he had already caught the flow of her thoughts well enough to finish her sentences. Bog had a dry, biting sort of humor that matched what she knew of his temperament and couldn’t help but make her laugh, in spite of herself. She found she meant it when she told him she’d take that ride another time – she found she did, for once, _want_ to see him again.

It had been a long time that she had been so happy, she felt a little like twirling on her skates, like singing. Ridiculous really, but a good kind of ridiculous.

The sunset had turned the sky a pretty shade of purple and she picked up her pace a little. She wasn’t close to home, but she wasn’t particularly far either. Dawn would probably be wondering what had taken her so long – even though Marianne hadn’t specified when she would be home from her errands.

A car passed her and someone whistled from the front window. Marianne scowled debating yelling something nasty back at them, but before she could form the insult the car turned pulling onto an alley and blocking her path, stopping there. Thoroughly annoyed, Marianne halted. “What’s the idea?” She snapped.

The driver’s door opened and she caught a glimpse of blonde hair and felt her stomach drop. _Not again_ , not _two_ days in a row. Not after she had been having such a good day. Two of his cronies stepped out of the back and were now on either side of him like knights to a pathetic excuse for a king.

“Well if it isn’t Miss Marianne,” she winced at the nickname that she loved so much from Sunny coming out in Roland’s disgusting voice. “You know, I’ve been lookin’ all over town for you.”

Even in the fading light, she could see the lasting results from her fist to his jaw – it was a impressive bruise, swelling up the left side of his face. She felt pleased with it. “What do you want, Roland?” She asked trying to sound bored with him. Idly, she wondered how much it would hurt if her skated foot kicked him in the groin. It would unbalance her but it would be worth it.

He spread his hands out like some dramatic show of submission. “I just want to talk to you, baby. You cut our last talk off so short.”

“Yeah, that’s a nice bruise. Tell me, can you eat?”

Roland flinched, to her satisfaction, but his smile didn’t waver. He waved his hand, sweeping the comment aside and continuing like she’d said nothing. “You never _did_ tell me what you were doin’ on that end of town yesterday?”

“It was none of your business, Roland. Now, I’m going home so leave me alone.” She moved to her left hoping to skate around his car. One of his men stepped away from him to stand in her way. Now all but seething with fury, Marianne glared up at him and she could feel the boy practically shaking.

Behind her, Roland said, “I think it _is_ my business, sweet. I don’t want my fiancée anywhere where she might be hurt or otherwise damaged.”

She whirled back to him. “I. Am. Not. Your. Fiancée.” She annunciated each syllable, all but spitting into his face.

He clucked his tongue at her. “Now, now, Marianne. You called off the wedding, but until your daddy or mine says we’re still engaged. You remember that.”

Hardly aware of her own movement, Marianne furiously swung the bag that held her dinner to the side smashing it against the head of the crony who had stopped her from leaving. It wasn’t hard enough to really do any damage but it at least startled everyone enough. Taking advantage of that she dropped the bag and swung her fist now.

However, she had forgotten in that moment about her skates and the punch she threw threw _her_ off balance. She stumbled, falling backwards and landing on her behind awkwardly. Wincing, she glared, trying to get back on her feet while Roland laughed and his men echoed him. Roland stepped forward, gripping her wrist as though to haul her up. She jerked back but he wouldn’t release her.

Somewhere behind them was a sound like a roar or a roll of thunder growing louder. Seconds later, headlights lit up the car and the scene and a motorcycle Marianne recognized screeched to a halt. With Roland distracted, Marianne jerked her wrist away at last, vainly attempting to get back on her feet.

By then Bog had gotten off his motorcycle, as tall, dark and generally terrifying as he had been at the bar the night before. Marianne was relieved to see him but it also frustrated her that they were once again in this situation.

“You, again?” Roland said, sounding more bored by the sight of him than anything, but Marianne caught a nastier edge to his voice. “Wo-ow, you really are at her every beck and whistle, aren’t you?”

Bog didn’t bother gracing that with a response.

“I was just helping the lady back on her feet. You can run along,” he waved a hand dismissively.

Still saying nothing, just glaring a very, very dangerous looking glare, Bog caught her eye. Just a quick gesture, a flick and then he was glaring at Roland again. A cue. Marianne noticed that at this moment no one was paying attention to her. She looked at her strap on skates and got an idea.

Roland was still blabbering to Bog, trying to get the man to back off by his supposed-charm alone. Marianne unbuckled her skates, and took on in her hand, facing out. Standing, she tapped Roland on the shoulder and when he turned, startled, she swung it at him, making contact with a delightful crunch. He _screeched_ , and fell backwards. Bog stepped aside to allow him to fall flat on his back – neither of the two men were quick enough to catch him either. They both ran to Roland afterwards and then stared from Marianne to Bog in horror.

“ _Go_.” Bog said, the word held more of his accent when growled, Marianne noted. It was the first thing he’d said since arriving.

They left, picking up the unconscious Roland and loading him in their pair of wheels and speeding off without so much as a word.

Satisfied and exhausted, Marianne dropped the skate with a disgusted noise and looked at Bog, who was looking from her to the discarded skate with an expression she recognized from the last time she had punched Roland out. A sort of awed respect, but she didn’t appreciate it at that moment.

“I told you I could take care of myself!” She snapped at him.

He actually took a step back, but spoke strongly. “I know you can, and would have if this had been a fair fight. He didn’t strike me as the fair type and you were outnumbered.”

“I could have handled it! And how did you even _know_ about this-?”

“I saw him.” He interrupted. “I saw him as I was leaving – him and his little pack. I didn’t hear what they were saying but I had a feeling- and when I saw them heading the direction you left I-“ He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “I just wanted to make sure you were- okay.”

Marianne nearly made a biting remark about _stalking_ but the tone behind his words stopped her. The concern there was something genuine, something she’d never really experienced before. He _did_ know she could handle herself, but that didn’t stop him from wanting to check, to see if he could do anything to help. And he had, after all. She didn’t doubt that she would have been able to stop Roland and his crew on her own, but he had helped. It meant more to her than she had hitherto realized.

“I didn’t need you,” She said – just to say it – and sighed, running her fingers through her hair. “But thank you. I think-“ She faltered. It had gotten dark and she was suddenly very much less keen on going home alone. Frankly, she wasn’t keen on going _home_ yet, either, needing some time to unwind after everything that had just happened. She glanced behind him to his motorcycle. It felt like a bad idea, but she was beyond caring.

“I-“ she licked her lips, her mouth having gone dry. “I think I’ll take that ride now – if the offer is still open.”

Bog blinked, blue eyes going wide. “Ye-yes! Yes. Yes um-“ he coughed. “It is.”

She nodded. “Good.”

“Wait,” he said, quickly stripping off his jacket and handing it to her. “You’ll want this. It’s going to be cold.”

Marianne took it, and he gave a small smile at how it dwarfed her, which she returned. It was amazing to her, that this man could be both shy and nervous and yet so commanding and intimidating, and that both were both so completely _him_ that it didn’t feel contradictory.

He got on the bike with ease and motioned for her to join him. Awkwardly she did so. “So um, what do I hold on to?”

Bog cleared his throat, “You’re looking at him.”

“Oh.” _Oh_. Marianne considered this, took a breath and did what was suggested, wrapping her arms loosely around his torso. She felt him stiffen, ever so slightly at the contact. His shirt smelt like cigarette smoke and gasoline and something she assumed was ink.

“So,” he added, and Marianne got the distinct impression he was simply speaking to try and break the tension. “Am I- Am I just taking you home- or…?”

She considered this, too. She wasn’t sure she could pretend the _Roland thing_ hadn’t happened just yet, and if she came home right then and Dawn started asking her questions… “I think I’ll take… a ride. If, I mean, if that’s alright?”

“That’s- ah, that’s fine. Fine.”

She smiled, and then was startled out of it almost immediately as Bog started up his bike. The loud, growling noise was so much more aggressive and overpowering when she was on it. The whole contraption was shaking, too, and she clutched Bog tighter instinctively, embarrassed by her own reaction.

“O-on second thought, maybe home isn’t a bad idea?”

She could feel him laughing more than she could hear it. “Why? It’s a perfect night, tonight.”

A little surprised, she looked around. It had been warm for that time of year, and the night felt like it belonged to the summer and not the very early inklings of spring. She didn’t know when there’d be another night like this, and he was right – it was perfect.

She couldn’t imagine where else she’d have rather spent it.

Marianne nodded, and whether or not he actually felt the gesture he seemed to have register her consent. “Hold on, tough girl,” he said – and the motorcycle surged forward. Unable to help herself, she squeaked and wrapped her arms around him tighter once again.

It took a while, but slowly she adjusted herself to the speed and soon began to be able to focus on the blur of the scenery around them. They were heading north, out of town, forests replacing buildings, stars replacing streetlamps. The moonlight shot through canopies of branches over their heads and flew past like sparkling fairy lights. She didn’t know where he was going but she had a sense that he did. The surety of his turns from one county highway to the next said something about how often he had taken this exact route, for no express purpose than to just escape.

She felt she should say something but she could think of nothing worthy of the moment. Besides, while she had grown accustomed to the roar of the engine surrounding them – plus the wind – she knew she would have had to shout and even then he may not have heard. Instead she settled herself closer, resting her head against his back and enjoying the cool air rushing past her. She hadn’t felt this relaxed in a long time, and for a while the whole Roland issue left her mind completely. She was happy.

How long they road together, Marianne couldn’t really say, but after a time she recognized the surrounding that passed them and realized Bog was taking her back. He didn’t know where she lived, and at the first stop light they reached in town she explained the route to him and let him take her right up to her house in her sleepy suburban neighborhood.

They were uncomfortable again. Everything felt so quiet and everything small cough and rustle as they stood at the threshold of her long driveway felt too loud, too disruptive.

“So,” she said at last. “Um. Thank you. Thank you for that.”

“You’re welcome.”

She nodded. “I’m going to go, then.”

“Right,” Bog said, nodding in turn.

She didn’t move. Neither did he.

Without thinking, moving entirely on an impulse, Marianne stood on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek. He stiffened, and so did she – immediately pulling back and feeling her face all but glowing red.

“Sorry- I didn’t meant to be so- I mean-“ She looked down, then glanced nervously back up.

He was smiling, the smallest smile but it made her heart lift at the sight of it. Slowly, as if not to startle her, he brought his hand to cup her cheek. Slowly, in contrast to her previous movements, she brought hers arms to loop loosely around his neck. Slowly, so slowly, they kissed. It was chaste, soft and over as soon as it had begun but Marianne felt breathless nonetheless. Bog smiled at her again, and she felt herself smiling back.

“I’m going to go,” he said.

“Me, too.” She reluctantly pulled away from him and took a few steps back, before remembering. “Oh I- your jacket.” She shrugged it off, awkwardly handing it to him. He took it and settled back onto his motorcycle, starting it. “I-!“ He looked at her. “Thank you.” She said, again, lamely.

He grinned. “Goodnight, Marianne.” And with that he was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Despite my best efforts, they still fell in love in the space of one night.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A wild Dawn! Chapter appears!

“S-o, Marianne,” Dawn said slowly, having sat and watched her sister as she prepared for bed with growing amusement. They didn’t share a room, but Dawn was used to spending her evenings in Marianne’s room before one or both of them was ready for sleep.

Marianne turned to her, looking confused. “Ye-es, Dawn?”

“What are you doing?”

“What do you mean what am I doing- I’m not doing anything.”

“You were singing.”

She watched, grinning, as Marianne went still “I – I was _not_ singing.”

“Oh, yes you were.” She said. “So, what is his name?”

“Whose name?”

She sighed, trying not to sound as though she were struggling to teach a child. “The guy you’re in love with.”

“I- Dawn, that’s ridiculous! I am not-“ She stuttered, her face turning a very pretty pink.

“You were home late, and you’re singing. Marianne, you’re on cloud nine. I haven’t seen you like this in over a year – you are real gone for someone.”

“First of all, I was _not_ home late since I never told you when I’d be home,” Dawn snorted. “Second, singing does not mean someone is in love. And I wasn’t singing!”

“You were totally singing and you are totally in love so spill! Who is he?”

Marianne looked away, and Dawn could see that even her sister’s ears were pink. It was adorable. Dawn hadn’t seen Marianne in love since Roland and after that went, well, badly she didn’t think she’d ever have the joy of watching her ever-practical elder sister be giddy and loopy with love ever again.

“It’s not- I’m not in love with him I’m just- it’s not-“ She waved her hands in a vague gesture and Dawn clapped hers in delight. This was more than she had hoped for coming from Marianne.

“Well?” She prompted. “At least tell me his name! Do I know him?” Marianne winced and Dawn nearly squealed, cutting herself short so they didn’t wake their father – already asleep on the other side of the hall. “I do, don’t I? Oh! Oh, Mari it’s him isn’t it? The guy from the tattoo parlor? Bog, right?”

Marianne waved her hands frantically, her eyes wide. “ _No_! Well, I mean- yes, but I’m not-“

Dawn cut her off, falling back against the bed and squeaking, truly, unable to quiet herself this time. “Oh, I knew it! I knew it!”

“No- Dawn- I’m not in love wi- wait.” She looked at her, her brows knit together. “What do you mean, you _knew_?”

“Marianne, after the way he stepped in when Roland was after you and he was all,” she waved her hand. “Like crazy, like _wow_ , you know – I mean, everyone noticed there was something there.”

“I thought _you_ liked him,” she said, baffled and red faced.

Dawn rolled her eyes, reclining on to her elbows. “Oh, _please_. It was ooobvious he only had eyes for you last night, and I want someone who loves me more than anyone else.” Marianne snorted, and Dawn let herself fall back again. “You hush,” she said. “The point is, he’s all yours. It never would have worked between us anyway.” She added loftily. “He’s certainly more your type.”

“I don’t have a type – and I’m not in love with him!” Dawn heard her sigh a moment later, and looked up again.

“I heard that sigh. That was a love sigh. You haven’t sighed like that since Roland.”

“ _Dawn_!”

Her voice was sharper suddenly and Dawn realized her mistake. Roland was always a sore spot, it seemed, even if she’d found someone new. She knew they hadn’t seen each other since the engagement broke off and the way Dawn had heard him speak to her the night before had made her skin crawl. She couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for Marianne.  

She sat up again, and didn’t meet her sister’s eye. “Sorry- and I don’t mean to push you into anything. I’m just,” she glanced up now. “I’m happy for you, Mari. Way happy. You’re always doing things for me and for dad and for everyone else and you deserve this.” Now it was Dawn’s turn to sigh, a very different sigh than her sister’s. Her sister did deserve this, but it just reminded her all over again of how much she wanted it.  “Marianne?”

“Yeah?”

“You think I’m… _flighty_ , don’t you?”

Marianne winced. “Did you and dad fight again?”

“No! Well, maybe kind of.” Marianne rolled her eyes. “He was on me again about how I shouldn’t be going out as much and shouldn’t be giving all these young men these ideas and he called me flighty again. He always says it like he means… something worse.”

Her sister moved to sit by Dawn on the bed. She put her hands on her shoulders until she looked her square in the eye and said flatly. “Dad’s an idiot.”

Dawn collapsed into giggles, which was obviously the intention. After they quieted, Marianne continued. “He’s looking out for you, both of us are. He’s just not good at saying it right.”

“But he _is_ right.”

“No. …Not really. Look, just look at Roland and I. I mean, he’s what I thought I wanted, what I thought I loved and I just… rushed into it, not thinking and now-“ she threw up a hand, disgusted. “I can’t shake the creep no matter how much I want him out of my life.” Her voice had taken on a nasty edge and Dawn began to wonder if more had happened that she didn’t know about. “I worry – I worry a _lot_ – that when you are out looking for your perfect guy, you’ll fall in the same trap that I did and Dawn, you deserve so much better than that. But dad’s not right about anything about you being something bad. You drive me crazy sometimes but I wouldn’t want you to be any different than who you are, you know that.”

Dawn felt herself smile. Her sister’s protective tendencies made her want to scream at times but it was nice to hear, really hear, the reasons that she had for them. “I know,” she said at last.

Marianne smiled back and pulled her into a short, tight hug. “Besides, look what happened to me and Bog. I wasn’t looking for that at all. I mean, I was really _very_ sure I didn’t want that. He just kind of… happened.” Her smile had shifted back to what it had been earlier and she seemed to have forgotten that she had been denying her feelings for him. She shook herself after a moment, she added. “I’m sure you’ll get that someday, too.”

“I hope so.” Dawn brightened. “So, have you told him yet?”

“Told him what?”

“That you love him, silly!”

Marianne looked flustered again. “No- No! I mean- and I’m not in love with him!”

“You just said so!”

“I did not just say so!” She snapped. “I said we were- that we- oh, I don’t know what we are but I’m not- it isn’t _love_.” She said the word like it was something that rotted and smelt. “No. It’s just a strange sort of… _thing_.“

Dawn sighed. Marianne really was the most stubborn, least romantic, silliest person she had ever known. She thought it was a wonder they were related – aside from the stubbornness, on which they were on equal levels.

“Well, you should tell him soon, anyways.” Marianne tried to glare but her blush killed it. Dawn grinned, triumphant. “You know what, I think I’ll go see him tomorrow!”

“ _What_? Dawn-!”

“Yes, I definitely need to see him. Need to make sure to warn him off hurting you, you know.”

“Dawn, that’s ridic- he wouldn’t and _you_ trying to warn anyone off is-!”

Dawn jabbed a finer in her sister’s face. “Hey! You aren’t the only tough one in this family, missy! I’m going to make it so he never thinks about breaking your heart. I was going to have lunch with Sunny tomorrow anyways, I’ll just have him drop me off!”

Marianne sighed, running her fingers through her already messy hair. “Dawn, what have I told you about dragging Sunny into these things?”

She shook her head, convinced of herself now. “Oh Sunny won’t do it for me – well, maybe he’ll do it for me a little – but he’ll do it for you, too.”

“Oh really?”

“You know how much he likes you, Mari. He’s my best guy, you know, but he really likes you, too. You’re much better to him than dad is.” She sobered, knowing her dad’s casual low opinion of Sunny and his race. Dawn had once gotten into a very, very heated argument about it once and had only quieted when she worried that he might fire the boy to put and end to it. Dawn adored Sunny. He was everything his name suggested; warmth and optimism and an unshakeable cheer that radiated off of him and left her basking in his presence. To lose him would be like never seeing the sun again.

Marianne was smiling at her, as if sensing her thoughts. The smile widened into a yawn, which set Dawn off after her. “Okay, enough of this. I’m nodding off and so are you,” she said firmly. “Go to bed, you silly girl, and don’t go seeing Bog tomorrow okay?”

“I’m going, I’m going.” Dawn said, giving Marianne one final hug. She reached the door, and turned back grinning. “And I am _so_ going to see Bog tomorrow.”

She shut the door behind her, but not before hearing her sister’s long-suffering sigh.

Dawn smiled.


	8. Chapter 8

Bog was, admittedly, something of a mess the next day.

Already the events from the night before felt like something out of a dream, something too good to have possibly been real. The entire morning he had been distracted, playing their conversation from the drive-in, their ride, their kiss, over and over again in his head. It would have been a particularly long and elaborate dream, but Bog didn’t put it past him to have made something like that up entirely.

And so, by early afternoon, he was no good to anyone and he knew it. Everyone else at the Dark Forest knew it as well. He hadn’t breathed a word about anything that had occurred between him and the eldest Fairwood sister to anyone, but most people from the north side had either been at the bar the night before that, or had heard the news. Word traveled quickly in the smaller community, although that word had a tendency to get a little mixed about in its dispatch. It didn’t take Bog long to realize that not only were most people aware of his feelings for Marianne, but a good portion had heard a version that they were running away together.

One of those people was his mother, who, while loudly ecstatic that her son was finally settling down, couldn’t stand the idea of eloping and had been throwing around wedding plans.

 _That_ was when he chose to leave.

Bog didn’t know anything about the flower shop in terms of working hours, and he only could assume she was at her shop whenever he was at his. She could be busy, and he hated her end of town and being there anymore than he possibly had to be… but at this point he really didn’t care. He wanted to see her, needed to see her, needed some assurance that everything that had happened was, in fact, real.

So Bog closed the parlor for lunch – a rare occurrence – and took his bike to the Fairwood Florist Shop feeling like a whole mass of butterflies had gotten lodged in his diaphragm.

She was there, in what she had wore the first time he’d seen her, bursting into his shop to drag her sister out, sharp words contrasting with her soft appearance. What she’d been wearing when he’d shown up impetuously the first time, knowing nothing about her – only, like now, that he had needed to see her another time. Now, in her skirts and bright colors, her hair pinned so it was out of her eyes, a necktie even, she was all uptown and high class. Except perhaps, for her expression of complete and utter _boredom_. Bog couldn’t help but smile and thought it no wonder she had hated him calling her princess before.

His nerves were easing now. Seeing her, bored and uncomfortable, made it easier to remember that while she might look like she was from a whole different world she was more like him than anyone he’d ever met, made it easier for him to imagine that last night had really happened. And then she looked up, caught site of him through the glass in the window and her whole face just… lit up, with a surprised sort of delight that made his stomach twist with a whole different kind of nerves.

She made no move to go up to him when he came in, just stood at her desk, drumming her fingers on the table and grinning. “So, I take it you’ve seen my sister, then?”

Not exactly the greeting words he had anticipated, but she was good at not doing what he expected. “… _Nooo_ ,” he stretched the word out, turning it more into a question. “Should I have?”

He didn’t know what Dawn Fairwood had to do with anything relating to them. Well actually, if Bog thought about it, Dawn Fairwood was, in fact, the entire reason they had even met, and the contributing factor in much of their initial interactions. He decided he should probably… do something, to thank her. In the future. Perhaps someday, if she had matured past the names of boys she hardly knew, he’d give her that first tattoo free of charge. That seemed like a good idea.

Marianne sighed. “Well, last night I told her – well, I didn’t really tell her anything about what happened. But I told her that we-“ she faltered and he raised his eyebrows, silently anxious. “That we were, _are_ ,” she waved a hand vaguely. “Well… you know.”

“Yes,” he said quickly. More relieved than not to hear she was also having trouble putting a defining word to them. He’d been struggling too, somewhere in the back of his mind.

She smiled and continued. “Anyway, Dawn said she’d see you today to make sure you don’t do anything to hurt me. I guess you missed her or she’s still out for lunch with Sunny.”

He laughed albeit a bit nervously, imagining how that conversation might have gone. What he knew of Marianne’s sister was that she was very… _energetic_. He did not want to be on the receiving end of any of that energy if he could avoid it. “So… what you’re saying is I should stay here as long as possible?”

Marianne rested her chin in one hand, her smile taking on a mischievous edge. “Oh, I see. Bog King’s sooo scared of one girl.”

He rolled his eyes. “She’s _your_ sister – I can bet she’s terrifying when she wants to be.”

She looked proud. “Please, it’s her way of showing she approves. And staying here won’t stop anything, she’ll just come back tomorrow, and the day after that. She’s more stubborn than I am.”

“ _That_ I don’t believe for a second.”

“Oh, be quiet,” she said, still grinning. “What are you doing here, anyways? Shouldn’t you be, oh, I don’t know, working?”

Bog leaned forward against her counter, taking some amusement in how he contrasted with his surroundings, in how he contrasted with her in that moment. “Oh, I was, but for some strange reason I just couldn’t concentrate.” He held her gaze until she blushed a little, catching his meaning.

“So you’ve decided to torment me instead?”

“Well, it’s hardly fair that only one of us is distracted,” he said.

Hands flat against the counter, Marianne leaned toward him, a playful look back in her eye. “Hardly,” she agreed, leaning closer and kissing him. He could feel her smiling against his mouth.

They broke away when they remembered needing air, only to come together again a moment later. They repeated this several times before he pulled away and rested his forehead on hers, breathless.

“So, what do you say you close up shop and we get out of here a while?” He asked softly.

Marianne pulled herself away from him so sharply he almost over balanced and smacked his head on the counter. “Ah ah ah. You can tempt me with moonlit rides all you like, but right now I am a responsible employee,” she said loftily, her eyes sparkling.

“Oh, are you now?”

“Oh, I am.” She replied, although he could see her craning her neck slightly trying to get a look outside at his motorcycle. He raised an eyebrow. “ _Well_. Maybe for… a little while.”

Bog grinned at her, picturing the image that was Marianne Fairwood in her princess dress, on his bike, with him, for everyone in her crowd to see. He didn’t know if word traveled the way it did around the Dark Forest, but he wanted to give them something to talk about.

She seemed to follow his thoughts, and shook her head at him. She shed her apron, tossing it behind her with abandon and actually hopped over the counter to him. “You are bad news,” she told him, very seriously.

He pulled her close. “You love it,” he growled, and kissed her again.

She pulled back. “And I’m out of my mind,” she said, and kissed him again.

A bell rang sometime later and it took Bog a few seconds before he realized it was the door. It hit Marianne at the same time and they jumped away, started and embarrassed.

The man in the doorway was a short black man – shorter than Stuff and Thang, even, and that said something – and was wearing the same pale green apron as Marianne’s over a pair of faded well-used overalls. The look of utter shock on his face was almost amusing.

Marianne gave a high nervous laugh. “S-Sunny! Uhm, hello! I was- Is Dawn-?”

He was still staring, looking between the two of them as if he was struggling to comprehend what he saw. Still, he answered her question with the promptness of someone who was used to being asked them. “Took her north side… to see… him?” He added slowly.

“Yeaah,” Marianne coughed. “Kind of change of plans with that. You just left her there?” She added sharply. Bog smiled in spite of himself; he wondered if she even knew she had a specific voice for things related to Dawn.

The boy, Sunny, raised his hands defensively. “She told me to come back to the shop incase you needed my help and to come back in an hour! I thought since you knew- it’d be alright.”

She sighed, but didn’t seem upset. She turned back to him, “Is anyone else at your shop right now?”

He thought about it and winced. “My mother lives upstairs but she was going to talk to Plum while I was out.” About _wedding plans_ , but he was not about to say that to her. “Stuff and Thang are probably nearby. They’re…” he searched for a word and fell back on, “relatively reliable. And the parlor is still open. Your sister will be fine.”

She smiled at him, seemingly satisfied. “Well then. Shall we?”

“Marianne?” Sunny asked, uncertainly.

She turned the grin to him, looking delightfully wicked. “I’m going to lunch. I’ll be back…” she waved her hand vaguely.

Bog smirked at the boy’s expression, wrapping his arm around Marianne’s shoulders and leading her out of the shop without so much as a backward glance.

She laughed once the door was shut. “Poor Sunny. I’ll have to tell him everything later. It’s nothing to do with you, you know. I think he’s just surprised to see me… like this with anyone.” She was blushing a little, as if she was surprised at herself for the same reason. “So!” she added, “Your mom lives above your shop?”

“…Yes.”

“Do you live above your shop?”

“… Perhaps,” he said, feeling his own face growing warm, not liking where this was heading.

“I should meet your mom.”

There it was. He gave a short, bitter laugh. “Trust me, tough girl, you should not. I would not wish that meeting on you, or anyone.”

She laughed. “She’s so awful?”

“She’s so…” he waved a hand. “ _Much_.” Before Marianne could say anything to that he got on his bike. “Now, where exactly am I takin’ you?”

Neither of them were particularly hungry, it seemed, and Marianne was curious about the bog from which he had gotten his name. They rode – barely out of town – then parked to the side of the back highway and sat by the edge of the creek he used to draw at. He talked about specific tattoos, she talked about her and Dawn and Sunny and her childhood. They kissed, frequently. He watched as she kicked off her shoes and dipped her feet in the water, paying no attention to the mud on getting on her clothes, he watched as she appreciated what was so much a part of his own childhood and what had made him who he was.

He _loved_ her.

He wasn’t keeping track of the time, and it didn’t appear she was either. But after some period of time they were broken out of their peace by the sound of another approaching motorcycle. Startled, they both stood, returning to the highway and Bog was surprised and a little irritated to see Stuff and Thang – the latter in the bike’s sidecar, as always.

“Boss!” They both said it unison, attempting to talk over each other. Both looked… more frantic than usual. That didn’t bode well.

“What is it?” He asked sharply. “How did you even know we – I- never mind! Just tell me!”

Thang was the one to speak up. “Dark Forest is on fire!”

“ _What_?” Bog and Marianne asked in unison.

“Seems someone must have thrown somethin’ threw a window,” Stuff continued, trying to sound composed. “Think they must have been drivin’ by and probably thought people were in there.”

“It’s already been called in but you need to get-“

“I’m going _now_!” He interrupted sharply, his mind racing. No one from the north would have done something like that. If it had been a drive-by there was no way to no for sure. If it had been called in the damage might be minimal and if he got there soon… and at least he knew his mother was safe. “Come on, Marianne.”

Marianne was silent, and he turned to her. She was frozen, wide-eyed and shaking so minutely he wasn’t sure she knew she was. She was terrified, and Marianne was never scared.

“Marianne? What is i-”

She was broken out of her trance and grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket. “ _Dawn_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well there's a mood whiplash for you


	9. Chapter 9

“I am so stupid. I am so stupid. I am so, so stupid.”

Marianne repeated the mantra the entire ride to the Dark Forest tattoo parlor, perfectly aware of the fact that Bog couldn’t hear her over the roar of the motorcycle. The words weren’t for him, to reassuringly brush away. It wouldn’t have worked anyway. She was stupid, a stupid, stupid idiot who should have known.

A week – not even a week! – ago, hearing that her baby sister was alone on the north side of town would have had her all but sprinting to either collect her or at least make it so she wasn’t alone. To keep her safe, regardless of tall blue-eyed greasers assuring her, _Your sister will be fine_. There would have been nothing, _no one_ , that could have tempted her away from protecting Dawn; she wouldn’t have allowed for it. She wasn’t a child anymore, this was hardly her first experience with romance, she should have known. She should have been there. Even when she rolled her eyes and dragged her feet, Marianne knew her sister trusted her to look after her, _knew_ she was always looking out for her. She was the one to make sure that Dawn was safe at all times, she was the only one who could. And for once in her life, Marianne had put that aside for a guy.

And this is what came of that.

Oh, Marianne _knew_ she wasn’t being fair about this. It wasn’t as though Bog had set his own home and livelihood on fire. It wasn’t as though either of them could have possibly known that this would happen the one time she chose to make herself and her feelings the priority. It wasn’t her fault, it wasn’t his fault, that Roland had set the place aflame with Dawn inside. But it felt like a giant slap in the face nonetheless.

And it _was_ Roland. Although his employees – Stuff and Thang – said no one had seen the car there was no doubt in Marianne’s mind. He was competitive, prideful, self-centered and _hated_ losing. Twice, two nights in a row, Marianne had slammed him, blown him off and outright rejected him. Both times, Bog had been there. Roland had caught a connection even before she had allowed herself to think that they’d had one. And he’d decided Bog needed back in his place.

She could deal with Roland later, though. She could deal with her guilt later, too. The only thing that mattered was saving Dawn.

The Dark Forest was on the end of a row of shop fronts, not unlike the south side shops like that which housed her flower shop, except that the building had to have been decades older, well-used and well-mended, hardly staying together as it was. Marianne found, underneath her dread, she was not surprised to find that what Stuff and Thang had earlier assured her was only a small fire, had grown to engulf the entire shop including the upper floor. Nor did it surprise her that they had gotten there before any help had, with how fast they had ridden over. A crowd had gathered in the street in front of it, although they parted to allow Bog through.

She was trying to get off the bike before it had even fully stopped, screaming. “Dawn! DAWN!” She tripped over her skirt, trying to get her other leg over and fell onto the gravely street. Bog was there in a second, helping her to stand, and she was already moving again, pushing through the small crowd gathered around the parlor to get to the burning building.

“ _DAWN_!”

“She’s in the back – we can hear her.” The speaker was a large black man who looked big enough to crush her if he so chose. She started, not having expected anyone to respond to her, much less try and help or reassure her. She took a second to look, really look, at the people around her. They varied in races, dressed like the kind of folk she’d seen at the bar. They were his people, and this was his home, and they were all concerned. Dawn wasn’t one of them, nor was she, but they extended their worry to them both. In any other situation, she might have been touched.

“There’s a lot of smoke but the flames are all upper floor and in the front. Once laws and firemen arrive there’ll be no trouble getting her,” someone else’s gravely voice added, but Marianne wasn’t looking at the speakers anymore. A hand touched her shoulder, which she registered as Bog’s without looking. She couldn’t look away staring at the shop front and thinking of her frightened sister.

“She doesn’t have that long!” It was Bog who said it. She had been thinking it but to hear him say it so sharply made her apprehensive.

“What do you mean? Why not?”

“The roof’s not goin’ to last much more.” His mouth was pressed in a thin line and he spoke in a tight voice, as if afraid he was going to say too much. He was watching the building rather than meeting her eye. his shoulders were hunched, and every inch of him looked tense. “These aren’t your southern mansions – most are already rottin’. If she doesn’t- If we don’t-!“

He didn’t finish the sentence. Without another word, without even a look at her, he took off toward the Dark Forest.

“What are you-?” Marianne began before it hit her exactly what he was doing. She ran after him, catching up in seconds and grabbed for him, pulling him to face her. “Don’t you dare! She is my sister – I should be the one-!”

“Marianne, get back-!“

“I won’t! I can-!“

“Take care yourself, I _KNOW_!” He snapped, the panic in his voice and concern in his face softened the words. He lowered his voice. “Mari, I know. But I know this place, and I know where she’ll be. A few seconds, in an’ out, an’ we’ll both be alright, but I’ve got t’go _now_. Trust me and stay back.” He added, taking a moment to cup her face in his hand.

At that moment, trust wasn’t something Marianne had in much abundance. But at that moment, rescuing Dawn was the one thing that mattered more to her than anything and if Bog was willing to risk his life to get her, she had to let him.

Not trusting her voice, she just nodded. He gave a tight smile, kissed her forehead, and ran in.

She watched, unblinking, barely capable of breathing. He really shouldn’t have mentioned the thing about the roof, as it was now all Marianne could focus on, staring at it as it smoldered and listening to the crackling of the flames and wood. _A few seconds_ , she thought, _a few more seconds and I’m going in after them_.

She was interrupted from this plan by the sound of a high, grating voice from the back of the crowd crying out, “My son! Has anyone seen my son?” A moment later a woman joined her, dressed in some faded cloth dress, her hair a mess. She was short and sort of wide, as if she’d once been a normal size and had been… compressed.

Beside her, contrasting in every way possible, was the woman Marianne recognized as Plum. As always she was impeccably dressed and her hair was piled atop her head in a way that looked as if it were being held up magically – not a wisp of it out of its place. She had a hand on the older woman’s shoulder and was staring at the shop looking more somber than Marianne had ever seen the perpetually bubbly woman. _His aunt_ , she remembered. She was his aunt and that would make the shorter one… his mother. She had wanted to meet his mom some day but this was not what she had ever had in mind.

There was a crash from inside the building and Marianne heard her sister’s scream and instantly forgot about anything and anyone else. The cracking of wood sounded louder and she couldn’t breathe. “ _Dawn_!” She screamed again, ready to run. Plum quickly grabbed her shoulder. Behind her there was the sound of bells and whistles and the crowd parting again as firemen had, at last, arrived.

Another sound of cracking, crumbling wood and another shout – this time Bog’s voice – and then she saw the door kicked open and two figures stumble out. It took a moment for Marianne to process the situation before she realized that Dawn was wrapped in Bog’s jacket, bundled both in it and in his arms as he appeared to be shielding her with his body as well. He was clutching his arm, wincing, bits of his shirt, skin and hair still smoldering. They were both surrounded by EMTs immediately. Around her there was a cry of relief and she let herself breathe for the first time. She still buzzed, feeling as though there was still danger, still something present that she had to fight before she could really let herself relax. Dawn was safe, Bog would be okay, she should have been calm now.

She went to Dawn first, quickly explaining her relation. Her sister was shaking, taking labored breaths, and was clearly recovering from shock. Bog’s leather jacket was still around her like a blanket, her face had soot smudges and bits of her beautiful golden hair had been charred. But, largely, she was unhurt. She was coherent enough to hug Marianne and she was regaining composure from the touch.

“It’s alright,” Marianne told her softly, feeling tears prick at her eyes. “It’s alright. I’m here.”

Over her shoulder she caught sight of Bog, clearly in need of more medical attention than Dawn. His right arm looked bad and he was cringing as it was looked at, and listening to both his mother and his aunt berating him for recklessness with a relieved anger Marianne knew well. Silently, she willed him to look up and see her. She told herself to go to him, to say something – anything – but even in this moment, she couldn’t leave her sister again, not for a second.

“Marianne! Dawn!” A voice shouted. Over everything else, Marianne hadn’t heard another car approach and felt her sister stiffen at the voice they both recognized.

She pulled away. “ _Dad_ ’s here?” Even with her voice still trembling and a little rougher than usual the incredulous tone was obvious.

“He had to know,” Marianne said, only partially apologetic. “You could have died.”

Immediately after she had been told about the fire, Stuff and Thang had asked their boss what he wanted them to do but it was Marianne who had answered. _Go to my shop; there’s a boy there, Sunny. Tell him everything and tell him to get my father._ Bog had been more than a little startled at her orders but didn’t contradict them.

Now while she didn’t regret making the decision, she winced a little. Their dad knew nothing of their escapades to the north side, knew nothing of the tattoo parlor. Neither did he know about Bog or Marianne’s budding relationship with him. She didn’t know how this whole scene was going to look to the older conservative man, but it wasn’t going to look good. Never mind that Dawn was safe now, never mind that a greaser had saved her life.

At least he’d taken Sunny with him; that was more than Marianne had expected. The short, thin man made it through the crowd faster than their father. “Dawn!” He cried, and Marianne stepped aside to allow him to embrace his best friend. She hugged him back, smiling for the first time since the ordeal.

“I’m okay now,” she said, softly. “I’m okay.”

Marianne smiled at them, before being jolted out of slowly calming down by the appearance of her father, having finally pushed through the crowd.

With Roland.

She went still, understanding that this was why she hadn’t completely relaxed yet. Somewhere in her gut she had known something worse was still yet to come, and here it was.

Wasting no time on pleasantries she lunged for him, screaming obscenities most folk wouldn’t have thought a highborn girl like her would even know, much less utter. And all strung together, too. She didn’t care.

Her father grabbed for her, the only force keeping her from clawing the boy’s eyes out. “ _Marianne_?” He said, sounding positively appalled. “What’s gotten in to you?”

Roland looked far too composed, confidant that she was being held back from him. “What’s the matter, baby? I was in the area when I saw the sirens. I had no idea little miss Dawn was involved,” there was a touch of genuine remorse in that comment that only served to infuriate her further. “Couldn’t imagine what a girl like that’s doing on this end of town.”

“You slimy son of a –“ she growled. “Where she or I go is none of your business! You could have KILLED HER! And it shouldn’t matter if she was there or not you don’t go torching people’s homes because your injured pride, because you feel you lost me to someone when I was never yours to lose!”

He raised his hands. “Are you suggesting _I_ had something to do with this? Why, darlin’, I am hurt.”

“Save it, you bastard.” she said. She had managed to free one arm and swung for him which he easily side-stepped.

“Marianne!” Her father said. She ignored him entirely.

Roland was still giving a look of mock injury. “Come on, Marianne. What makes you think I’d have been around north side at all? It was a drive-by, anyways, you’ve got no proof!”

Everyone was silent and it took Roland a moment a moment before he went pale, realizing his mistake. No one had mentioned that it had been a drive-by.

“Roland?” Her dad asked, a dangerous edge to his voice. Marianne was released at last.

He shook his head, trying to keep his smooth-talking smile on his face. “Look it isn’t – it wasn’t like that. Dawn wasn’t supposed to-“

“You nearly killed my daughter,” he said.

“Dawn wasn’t supposed – she wasn’t. I was- that man was taking advantage of Marianne! I saw it myself! He needed to pay-!”

“ _How dare you!_ ”

The voice, surprisingly, was Dawn’s. Everyone stared at the girl, who had gotten up and joined the conversation. Her voice still sounded rough but she spoke loud and firm. “How _dare_ you! _That man_ has made Marianne happier than I can remember her being in my whole life! Far happier than _you_ ever made her!” She jabbed a finger against his chest and pushed. The blond stumbled back, looking appropriately terrified. “ _That man_ saved my life just now, no thanks at all to you! So you can drop dead, cut out of my sister’s life, and stay out!”

Roland had backed away, only to realize that this was Bog’s crowd he was surrounded by. That this was the last place he would have wanted to be when gloating. Marianne felt herself relax, truly relax at the look of horror on his face. She didn’t need to see what was going to happen to him. It was enough to know it would, and to know that her father at least knew that truth.

The older man was surveying the scene around him with part bafflement and a great deal of displeasure.

“We’re going home,” he told his daughters, firmly. “We are going home now. You both have a lot of explaining to do.”

“Dad-“ Dawn began, but Marianne cut her off.

“This had _nothing_ to do with her,” she said. “And she’s still recovering. We’ll go home, but don’t put any of this on her, dad. Please.”

“Marianne-!” Dawn said. When Marianne looked at her, she jerked her head meaningfully. She followed the direction to see Bog, still sitting at the back of the ambulance, his expression, even from that distance, obviously showing that he had been watching the entire showdown. Everything in her was saying to go to him. But she had to get Dawn home. She had to explain things. She needed to think about everything that had happened, alone, before she could possibly do anything about him.

With a sigh, she put an arm around her sister.

“We’re going home.”


	10. Chapter 10

Things progressed quickly from there.

Marianne had explained everything in a series of half-truths that minimalized both Dawn’s involvement and her own feelings for the owner of the Dark Forest. Dawn felt the latter was a bit heavy-handed to be believable but said nothing. Besides, it was obvious there was no lie involved when Marianne told the story of Roland stopping her when she was going home alone at night and that Bog had come to her rescue and taken her home. Dawn listened to this and thought it no wonder her sister had come home singing that night.

In the end, they had partial success. On one hand, Dawn and Marianne’s father took one look at the situation and immediately, officially, declared Roland’s engagement to the eldest sister null and void and was under no circumstances allowing the boy anywhere near either of them.

On the other hand, he wasn’t letting the sisters near anyone else, either.

Dawn groaned and dragged her feet all week, but it wasn’t her confinement that had her bemoaning their fate. It was Marianne’s.

On her part, Marianne apologized just about every third word. Apologized for leaving her alone, for allowing her to have been caught up in a problem that had nothing to do with her – as if that made it  _her_ fault somehow –, for not being there as she had always been there. Dawn was touched if not a little annoyed by how her sister carried on about it.

“You didn’t know this would happen, neither of you did. I’m safe now and it means enough that you came when you did and I’ll never, ever feel like you didn’t care.” She said it as many times as Marianne said she was sorry, a refrain to all their conversations.

How annoying it was to hear her sister berate herself over supposed silliness it was  _nothing_ compared to how frustrating it was to hear her sighing her lovelorn sigh over the greaser, Bog. Worst of all, Dawn didn’t think Marianne even knew she was doing it.

“Talk to him,” she said, for the millionth time one night nearly a week since the incident. “It’s not like you don’t know where he is.” It frustrated her somewhat that Bog, who obviously knew where the Fairwood sisters both lived and worked had not shown his face in the last five days either. Perhaps they were perfect for each other if neither of them knew anything whatever about being in love.

Marianne rolled her eyes, but at least wasn’t playing the ‘ _talk to who_?’ game she had been doing before. “Actually, I  _don’t_  know where he is. The parlor’s not exactly in working order and I have no idea where he’ll be staying in the meantime.” Dawn heard the remorse in her sister’s voice and restrained herself from smacking her with the magazine she’d been reading. What had happened to the tattoo parlor was a tragedy but Marianne did not need to blame herself for it. “Besides, I don’t even know what I’d say.”

Dawn groaned. “ _Thank you for saving my sister_.  _I’m sorry about everything_  – even though you shouldn’t be, sis, seriously. _I love you_. Simple!”

“Dawn! I don’t-“

“Don’t love him? Really? I know something about love-“ Marianne snorted. “I do! And I know maybe it’s not all those crushes I have, but I also know it’s not something dangerous or- or weak. And I know you love him, so tell him!”

Her sister gave another sigh, running her fingers through her hair, but she looked more thoughtful than before.

Smiling she added, “If you don’t at least try talking to him tomorrow I am going to start sending him flowers for you!”

“Dawn! NO!” She gasped in horror.

She started giggling. “Ooh! I’d have to send notes with them, too! I think I could probably mimic your handwriting! ‘ _My dearest Boggy-Woggy Kingy-Wingy_!’“

“Dawn, don’t you dare-!”

“’ _I just can’t help myself! I love you sooo!_ ’” She fluttered her eyelashes.

“I’m going to kill you!” She grabbed the magazine from her hands and hit her lightly on the forehead.

Dawn grabbed the magazine back. “Well,” she said loftily. “You’ll just have to go talk to him tomorrow, then.”

Marianne stared at her for a moment, and she held her gaze levelly until she understood that she meant the threat. She dropped her head with a groan. “Fine! Fine! I’ll try!”

Dawn squealed with delight. “That’s all I needed to hear! I’ll make sure Sunny and I go out later so I can watch the shop whenever you go!”

Marianne groaned again, this time she knew it was at Dawn’s infallible ability to keep seeing Sunny in spite of her grounding. But she knew, much like her sister, her best friend didn’t want her much out of his sights when he could help it. She thought often about how much it must have scared him to hear about the fire, and how much she didn’t want him scared or hurt and showed it by trying to spend as much time with him as she could manage.

Marianne gave Dawn a small push. “Now, I’m going to bed, so go read in your room, you little monster.” She kissed the top of her head. “And don’t stay up too late!”

“Yes, mom!” Dawn teased, getting up and going to the door.

“And Dawn?” Her sister added, before she could leave.

“Mm?”

“You know what you said the other day – about singing and being in love?”

“Yeah, what about it?”

Marianne waved her hand. “Just… that you’re always singing after you’ve spent the day with Sunny.” Dawn stared at her, at a loss for words, and she smiled. “Just, something to think about, okay? Now, go to bed.”

Dawn shut the door to her sister’s room, and stood with her back against it for a moment and wondered if, perhaps, being a fool in love was something that ran in the Fairwood family.

But that was a problem for another day.

* * *

Bog King had not been having a very good week, unsurprisingly.

To the point where losing his shop was at the  _bottom_  of the list of problems, and was probably going to be the easiest to fix. He’d lost most of the equipment but supplies and storage in the back had all been salvageable. The shop had done well enough in the past that there was a fallback, not much of one, but he wouldn’t be starting over from nothing. On top of that, with everything that happened, denizens of the north side – the majority of whom had been his customers at one time or another – were more than willing to pool some of there own assets to help in rebuilding of the Dark Forest. With a few extra gigs planned out to earn a little extra money, it didn’t look like it would be long before he could be back in business.

Losing his house was a bit higher on that list, although the solution to that had also been fairly immediate and simple. He was simply staying with Plum for the time being.

Unfortunately this meant that both he _and_  his mother were staying with Plum, and even their apparent truce under common cause of getting him hitched to Marianne Fairwood and soon as feasibly possible could not keep them on amicable terms for long. And it was already bad enough to have two women, both with voices that could break glass he was sure, arguing day in and day out. It was an entire thing more to have him be the subject of most of their arguments.

Well, him and his relationship with Marianne.

“I say, if she hasn’t come to see him tomorrow that he needs to forget the whole thing!” His mother said, not for the first time that week, not, probably, for the last.

“Griselda, are you out of your mind?” Plum exclaimed. “The girl is on the hook, she just needs him to make the first move! Didn’t you see her at the fire?”

Bog didn’t like that they used ‘ _the fire_ ’ as some sort of fuel for their matchmaking. Nothing about that was good, even if it had resulted in him and Marianne actually putting a name to whatever it was they were - which it hadn’t. That wasn’t why he had done it, any of it. The whole ordeal still made him nervous when he thought about it too long; it was a miracle they’d gotten there in time, it was a miracle that he’d been able to get Dawn out of the building relatively unscathed. He’d gained a stinging wound on his right arm that would result in a large nasty scar that would probably never quite fade, but he’d have suffered plenty worse for the sake of the younger Fairwood girl. She was bubbly and silly and was probably very similar to his aunt when she was that age, but she meant well and she had gone out there to see him for her sister’s sake – he couldn’t let her be hurt for that, not when it had had nothing to do with her.

“I saw her leave that fire without even a thank you to my boy for all his trouble! If she cared at all she would have at least come around by now to say that much!”

Plum waved her hands, exasperated. “Just because she had to leave doesn’t mean she wanted to leave! You can’t expect her to forget him – and do you really think he’s going to get a chance like this ever again! She’s ideal!”

“You both know I’m still in the room, right?” He said dryly. They ignored him completely.

“Ideal?  _Peh_! Then she should have come see him by now – she shouldn’t have left him at all!”

Yes, what was highest on his list of problems, what was making this week the most unbearable, was that he had yet to see or hear from Marianne Fairwood.

He didn’t like being reminded of her sudden departure. Regardless of how much he told himself that he had not rescued Dawn for her or to gain any favor from her – and as much as he meant it – Bog had still thought, hoped perhaps, that she might have stuck around longer, said something, anything to him.

It was ridiculous. Her sister had nearly died, she had faced down the man who had put her in danger… knowing her, she had probably been in no mood to be throwing herself at him in gratitude. Bog knew she was grateful; she didn’t need to do anything or say anything to him to make it any clearer.

But it had been a week, or nearly that, since he had last seen her and it was driving him out of his mind. He needed to see her, if nothing else to let her know he was okay, that the shop would be okay, that he didn’t blame her or  _them_  for anything that had happened. He needed to apologize for worrying her, for causing her any sort of distress.

He needed to tell her that he loved her.

Ridiculous, cliché as the feeling was, he was lost.

Plum was right, of course, in having said that he needed to go and see her if he wanted to say any of this to her, but he couldn’t bring himself to go, to push his presence on her when he had no idea how she or her sister had been recovering. Maybe part of him did just want to see if she would come to him.

But listening to his mother and his aunt spend their days with apparently nothing better to discuss than his romantic life, or lack there of. Having to listen to them bring up every detail of the relationship that they knew nothing about. For an entire week. It was too much.

They were still arguing until he stood up, and both went silent. Staring up at him.

“Will you both be quiet?” He asked.

Silently, the two of them nodded.

“Good.” He cracked his neck. “I’m going out.”

“Out?” his mother began. “Are you-?”

“I’m going  _out_ ,” he repeated, staring her down sternly. “And I don’t want to hear a word about her when I get back, do you understand?”

They nodded again.

Bog sighed, absently rubbing the bandage on his arm. And hopefully, they would listen to him and stop speculating his relationship with Marianne Fairwood.

Hopefully by the end of the day, there would be nothing left to speculate about.

* * *

On the other side of town, Marianne had gotten out of tracking down Bog in such a way that wouldn’t result in her sister acting upon her humiliating threat. She had gone out, but it wasn’t to see him – although she claimed it as much to her sister – and she did have a plan, of sorts but it wouldn’t be ready before the day was out and she needed time.

She spent the morning working her project, planning out what to do when she was ready to see Bog again. It was harder to think about than she had ever anticipated.

The thing was that Bog never did quite what she expected of him. He had never been exactly what she had expecting or planning and even when he did, it did things to _her_ that she would never have seen coming. She hadn’t meant for him to become such a large part of her life at all, she hadn’t planned on falling in love with him.

But there they were.

Dawn was right, of course. Love wasn’t the problem, love wasn’t a weakness, and love wasn’t what had put her in danger. Roland had never loved her, and she was certain now that she had never loved Roland. But where that love wasn’t weakness it was still something that was entirely new to her. Real love. Love that made her lay awake at night thinking about him. Thinking back to memories from their moonlit bike ride, from their afternoon at his bog before everything had gone to hell in a hand-basket. The way his eyes lit up when he smiled at her, the hesitant quality of his embraces – in such a way that made it obvious that he was only holding back for her sake and she hoped, had hoped, she’d get to tell him that he didn’t have to.

She had no idea what to do with this kind of love.

She felt awful for leaving him, too, even though at the time she had known she was too high strung, too emotionally drained to have been any good at saying any of the many things she had wanted to say to him. As the adrenaline wore off she thought about how it must have looked when she had left without so much as a thank you to him. He had risked his life for Dawn, something that she could never possibly repay him for. She should have said something. Anything!

Still, her whole plan hinged on seeing him again, and she still wasn’t entirely sure how she was going to do that. Marianne meant what she’d said to her sister; she hadn’t the faintest idea where he might be. She could probably have gone to the north side and asked just about anyone and they would have told her, but- every time she thought about it, about what she might say to him it felt like her tongue might choke her, like her heart was going to leap out of her chest. So she put off the plans for the next day, and then to the day after that, and so on.

And so, as frequently happened between them, Bog completely upset her plans. By showing up at the flower shop no less.

He didn’t sneak up on her; Marianne’s ears were now hyper-attuned to the sound of a motorcycle, a specific motorcycle. No she had heard him a block and a half away and felt every hair stand on end with nerves.

By the time he was outside she had forgotten everything she had wanted to say to him. By the time he came in, tall, awkward and out of place – as always –, she had also forgotten why on earth she hadn’t gone to see him sooner. He was no silver-screen dreamboat, he was nothing she was used to, but seeing him there, in her shop, made her heart do flips. She didn’t want to let him go ever again.

Now she just needed to tell him that.

He was wringing his hands, looking around the shop rather than at her directly. She noticed the bandage on his arm and winced.

“So, are you, uhm. Are you… okay?”

“I’m fine!” He said quickly. “Just fine. Is- is your sister…?”

“She’s good… too.”

“Good,” he said, and he smiled.

She smiled back and for a few seconds they just… stood there, smiling like complete loony fools and Marianne could only imagine Dawn’s exasperation if she could see them right then. “I didn’t mean to leave so suddenly!” She said, quickly. His eyes widened a little and she elaborated. “I wanted to get Dawn home and with everything so- and I meant to come see you sooner than this- to thank you, you know. I can’t thank you enough,” he was smiling through her stumbling, that small shy smile he’d given her the night they’d first kissed. It made concentrating very difficult.

“I-I’ve got your jacket in the back!” She added, and could have kicked herself. Of all the things to say!

“I- that’s good,” he said, a little nonplussed. “That’s ah- that’s not why I came.”

Her face felt like it was on fire. “Why did you come?”

Bog opened his mouth, closed it, cleared his throat. Marianne felt a bit of her nerves recede watching this tall imposing greaser stumble around his words; they really were both terrible at this. He was in the process of trying again when he saw what she was nervously playing with in her hands. “What- what is that?”

Marianne held up, hoping her hand didn’t shake. “It’s nothing really, I just- I’d been thinking about making a corsage recently and I’d had them in mind.”

“It’s, um, it’s lovely. It looks like-“

“Bog plants,” she supplied, blushing. “They are.”

“From…?”

She nodded.

That had been how she had spent her morning. She had gone to the north side. Far north. Out of town north. To the small creek, small bog, that he had shown her. This small bit of personal, of him that he had allowed her into. It had been such a casual event, but something that she had held onto. She had wanted to show him how much it had meant to her, how much he did. It had felt silly but she could see from the way his eyes had widened, from the slightest flush of his cheeks, that the sentiment hadn’t fallen on indifferent ears. Taking a breath she added;

“I made a… matching one.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Did you, now?” He said, and there was the tiniest hint of that smirk she loved. Still a little embarrassed but largely delighted.

She nodded again. “It’s ah, it’s with your jacket. I’ll be right- I’ll just be right back.” It was sitting, in something of a leathery clump, in the back of the shop. Marianne could not and would  _never_  admit to the hours she had spent with it either beside her as she worked or wrapped around her shoulders, with him in her thoughts. The boutonniere she’d finished only hours before he’d appeared and she hastily pinned it on the lapel, pricking her finger at least three times before it was secure.

Bog was standing exactly where she left him, his arms crossed, and yes, there was that smirk. She stalked up to him, more confident with each step. He took the jacket, sliding it on, and she reached out, smoothing out the bog-plant-boutonniere.

“There,” she said. “Suits you.” An ironic echo of the first time he had come into the florist shop and all she had wanted was rid of him.

Grinning up at him she saw in his eyes that he was making the same connection. He shook his head, and pulled her close, kissing her.

“I’ve got a gig at a bar my side of town tonight,” he said when they came up for air. His voice was low, nearly a growl and made her shiver. “I think you know the place. You’ll be there?”

“I don’t know,” she returned coyly. “I’ve been hearing a lot about how dangerous you and your crowd are lately.” She walked her fingers up his arm and looped both around his neck.

“Oh, really?” He sounded positively wicked. “Well, tough girl, love is dangerous.”

She kissed him again. “I like danger,” she murmured.

They kissed until Dawn and Sunny came through the door; her shriek of glee and triumph could be heard by the entire town.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> epilogue to follow <3


	11. Chapter 11

It would surprise a lot of people how much could happen in a month.

None of these people would be Marianne Fairwood or Bog King, though, who both knew very well how much could change in the space of a week, how much could change in one night.

(Bog maintained that they fell in love the night he took her on her first ride. Marianne maintained that it was a more gradual thing – somewhere between the bar and the drive-in, the ride and the fire. They both tended to forget that all of those events happened within a 48-hour period.

Plus the extra week it took them to get over themselves and confess how they felt.)

In the month that followed their, somewhat stumbling, love confession, they spent a good week with clandestine moonlit rides late at night. They would park off the side of county highways and look at the stars and talk about what they were and what they wanted, and laughed about what complete fools they had been.

The rides were a secret from everyone but Dawn. Marianne had told her father about her intention to go steady with the greaser from ‘ _that fire_ ’, but she was trying to ease him into it slowly. She had initially been saved from whatever explosion she might have faced at her declaration by Dawn bursting into the room not a second later to inform him that she was in love with Sunny and they would be together no matter what he said. After that, he was too shocked to say anything to either of his daughters and they were taking advantage of that as long as they could.

In that month, Dawn and Sunny did indeed begin seeing each other. What was more amazing about this was how, to an outward eye, it would have appeared like  _nothing_  had changed. They had  _always_  loved each other,  _always_  been happiest when in the other’s company, and upset at the idea of being apart from them for very long. There wasn’t even a change in how often Sunny’s name was present in conversation as Dawn had always talked about him, her face lighting up a little whenever she said his name.

“I don’t know why it took you two so long,” Marianne would say anytime they were being particularly affectionate.

Dawn would roll her eyes. “You are one to talk Miss. ‘ _I’m-not-in-love-with-Boggy_.’”

“ _Bog_ ,” she’d correct before she could stop herself. Dawn’s favorite game was giving Bog as many ridiculous and horrendous nicknames as possible, and Marianne’s reactions only fueled her fire. “And at least I didn’t know him for  _years_  and  _years_  before realizing my feelings.”

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“I wasn’t going to rush you, and I’d thought maybe you’d see it yourself. But with everything that was happening with Bog and I…  I decided maybe you deserved a little push.”

For that push, Dawn and Sunny continuously expressed gratitude, which Marianne happily took – and tried to remember anytime the two of them were being sickeningly romantic in her presence. Which was often.

Not to say she and Bog were much better.

In that month, the Dark Forest tattoo parlor was re-opened. Not only had several gigs – with the added help of Marianne, Dawn, and Plum’s own charitable donations to the cause – earned Bog enough to get the shop running again, it had been enough to relocate it. The new building was still old, but sturdier built with a larger front window. It was still obviously north side but closer to where her side of town met his.

There was also a vacant shop beside it, which Marianne said was important when they had scoped it out, although she refused to explain why.

In that month, Marianne spent an increasing amount of time around Bog’s… well,  _bog_ , around books regarding gardening and wildflowers and carnivorous plants, around information and figures about the flower shop and its finances. Her father was mostly pleased, if not a little confused, by that last part; while he had always planned for Marianne to take over the shop one day she had never shown interest much interest in it before.

Bog had been equally confused.

“I don’t think most of your type want these in their pretty little corsages,” he had said while Marianne pieced together little bouquets of bog flowers, which had begun to bloom. They sat on a fallen log above the water, one of their visits, the sun just beginning to set. She had made a face at him, and stuck one of the flowers in his greasy hair. He made no move to get rid of it.

“My type should be tired of roses and lilies by now,” she had said, stubbornly, knowing very well that they weren’t and wouldn’t be. She didn’t care. They just didn’t know any better – but they would. “These are-“

“Different?” He suggested with a large cheeky grin.

She shoved him, nearly making him fall backwards with a yell. Smirking, she glanced at her makeshift bouquet and then at his tattoos. “Look, it matches.”

He’d rolled his eyes at her, and the conversation had moved to his tattoos – which she had a feeling she would always be fascinated with. To her own plans for her first one, someday. A plan she’d had long before Dawn had taken her fateful trip to the Dark Forest and changed both their lives in the process.

“A butterfly,” she’d said, and a little worried he might call it girlish or silly, went on to explain it’d been a nickname her mother had had for her as a girl and something important. Bog had smiled at her, all warm and gentle affection, and told her that it would be no problem at all, when she was ready. He’d gone on to awkwardly rub his neck and tell her that he had a few sketches of butterflies that tended to hang around the bog in the spring. Marianne had laughed, called him a softy, and thought about  _butterflies_  and  _bogs_  for some time afterward.

By the end of the month, Marianne’s budding feelings for Bog had grown to something she couldn’t have denied, even had she wanted to.  Perhaps her sister had been right and love hadn’t been the problem, hadn’t been something to hide away from. She still stuck up her nose at Valentines Day as it came and went, still made snide remarks about infatuations and commercialized love in every film and song, (Usually these comments were to Bog who happily joined in her mocking), but love as a concept, as a feeling, no longer was a painful or frightening subject. Yes, in that month, she found she was happier than she could remember being in a very long time.

And she intended to stay that way.

By the end of the month, Marianne officially unfurled the plans she had been working on and announced she was going to open another branch of the Fairwood Florist shop on the north end of town. She had talked to Dawn about it, and talked to Plum – who knew a thing or two about running a business on her own – and had had it in mind the moment she’d seen the empty space next to Bog’s new parlor.

Her father was suitably shocked, but nothing he could say would dissuade her; he had wanted her to get more involved in the business, he had wanted to give her the reigns. This is what she intended to do with it. For her part, Dawn was delighted that this meant the south side shop was hers to run. Sunny was happy to run for both shops while Marianne found help for hers.

“It won’t be ready to open for a few months yet,” Marianne told Bog, who appeared to have been struck speechless when she announced it to him. “I’ve just put my final touches on the plan and I- I thought you should know.  _Surprise_!” She added, a little nervously.

“Surprise,” he repeated, shaking his head. Slowly, a smile twitched at his lips. “A tattoo parlor and a flower shop next door. It’s ah-“

“Different?”

The smile grew. “We’ll… stand out, surely.”

She grinned fiercely. “If I were interested in fitting in, would I even be here now?”

“Fair point,” Bog said. “So, tough girl, what’s the handle on this new shop of yours?”

Marianne said nothing, impishly unfolding a paper she, Dawn and Sunny had worked on the night before; a rough concept of the name, the design for a shop logo. Bog took one look at it and laughed.

“Suits you,” he said. “I like it.”

“Suits  _us_ ,” she returned. “I’m glad.”

And so, one month after they confessed their love, the two sat down and talked plans for Marianne’s new domain, beside his own.

The Butterfly-Bog Florist Shop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the fun times everyone! This isn't the last fic you'll see from me as I've got plenty in-universe things I want to hash out, but those will all be in the one-shot territory.   
> So, thanks for sticking with this one. :D Enjoy!


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